High-Kick Stretch Exercises (Video)

High-kick stretch exercises will especially make use of your hamstrings. Find out about high-kick stretch exercises with help from a professional dancer in this free video clip.

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I'm Lindsey Smith and this is high kick stretch exercises. Today, we're going to talk about the key to good extension or high kicks and that is of course, stretching. You're going to need your hamstrings especially, to be loosened up to allow you to kick high. And so, stretching them is going to elongate the muscles, prevent injury and allow you to actually get your leg nice and high up in the air. What we're first going to do is sit on the ground, feet out in front of us. You can either point or flex your feet. Each of those positions will give you a slightly different stretch. You'll bring your arms up and over your head, then forward all the way and hold. You can hold these for about 16 counts. Make sure that your knees are perfectly straight the entire time. Then you're also going to want to practice your splits. You're going to want to do your right leg and your left leg and then, your middle splits. If you don't have them right away, that's o.k., just use your arms as support on either side. And then, make sure that your front leg is completely straight, foot pointed. And your back leg can be slightly bent while you're working on the developing those. Hold those for at least 30 seconds. Then the final stretch is to go to a bar or a counter and use that for support while you do what's called heel and hand stretches. You'll take your front leg, extend it to the front and then, you'll hold for eight counts. Release it and then, try to keep that same height until your leg fatigues and you need to bring it back down. You can do these everyday, you can do this to the side and to the back. And three of these stretches are really going to help you maintain good extension.